Paris airport attack: Prosecutors say attacker was monitored for suspected Islamic extremism
(FOX)- The 39-year-old suspected attacker killed at Paris’ Orly airport on Saturday after trying to wrestle away a soldier’s weapon had already crossed authorities’ radars for suspected Islamic extremism.
Paris prosecutors, who did not disclose the man’s name, said suspect’s house was among scores searched in November 2015 in the immediate aftermath of suicide bomb-and-gun attacks that killed 130 people in Paris. Those searches targeted people with suspected radical leanings.
The prosecutor’s office said its anti-terrorism division was handling the investigation and had taken the attacker’s father and brother into custody for questioning.
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the attacker, whom he did not identify, assaulted three Air Force soldiers who were patrolling the airport. He said the soldier who was attacked managed to hold on to her rifle and the two soldiers she was with opened fire to protect her and the public.
A spokesman for the military force that patrols public sites in France told BFM television the soldier attacked at was “shocked” but uninjured after the “very violent aggression” by a man who was quickly shot dead by two of her fellow patrolmen.